Dan Weintritt has been supportive of the Acadiana Native Plant Project (ANPP) since its inception in late 2016. Dan deserves our kudos for the monthly installments of a native gardening calendar he has contributed throughout this year! He hopes to contribute further educational materials for ANPP and the Louisiana Native Plant Society.
Dan's interest in native plants began during his childhood by involvement with the Boy Scouts and influence from his dad, former Lafayette Parish Master Gardener (LPMG) president, Don Weintritt. Don taught Dan how to identify trees in winter from bark and buds, identify birds from their call, etc., throughout 1000+ nights camping outside (yes, there's a patch for that!), with Scouting troops in three states.
Studying engineering, Dan oscillated between nursery work and other fields. A high point was working at Gethsemane Gardens, Chicago's biggest independent nursery, whereby he was invited to be a guest judge for the Chicago Mayor's Awards for Garden Design in 2008. There, Dan first saw deliberate native plant gardens at private homes, and realized that his passion for natural spaces and his job in horticulture could be more intimately linked.
After relocating to his ancestral hometown of Lafayette in 2009, he found work at All Seasons Nursery, and was able to get into Lafayette's gardening scene. He became active with the Lafayette Parish Master Gardeners, and met Janice Akers and ANPP at the LPMG Fall Plant Sale in 2016, and was fortunate enough to meet and work with June Walker just before her untimely passing. Active with the group for its first three years, Dan has subsequently taught Plant Science Merit Badge for various Boy Scout events, given seminars and guest talks for All Seasons Nursery, LPMG and ANPP, and has had the opportunity to buy a home with his wife, Heidi. Together they are doing the diligent work of creating their own native plant sanctuary in Upper Lafayette. Achieving Gold-Level Certification early this year, the half-acre property now hosts upward of 150 native plant species.
Dan has used the brainstorming sessions of this year's gardening calendar as the basis of an upcoming instructional book on native plant gardening. His most prized possession was a gift from his wife, a first-edition copy of Flowers Native to the Deep South, by Louisiana's own Caroline Dorman.
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